Across the nation

Posted: December 28, 2012 - 1:33am

CONCORD, N.H.

A muted version of a winter storm that has killed more than a dozen people across the eastern half of the country plodded across the Northeast on Thursday, trapping airliners in snow or mud and frustrating travelers still trying to return home after Christmas.

The storm, which was blamed for at least 16 deaths farther south and west, brought plenty of wind, rain and snow to the Northeast when it blew in Wednesday night. Lights generally remained on and cars mostly stayed on the road, unlike many harder-hit places including Arkansas, where 200,000 homes and businesses lost power.

By afternoon, the precipitation had stopped in parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Massachusetts, though snow continued to fall in upstate New York and northern New England. Parts of snow-savvy New Hampshire expected as much as 18 inches.

OKLAHOMA CITY

Oklahoma State University officials fretted about the school’s public image as details emerged about the sexual assaults of several male students on campus, and maintained throughout it was appropriate to withhold details of the attacks from police, according to records obtained by The Associated Press.

Even after an official from the U.S. Department of Education suggested the university had misinterpreted a portion of the Family and Education Rights Privacy Act, or FERPA, an OSU attorney insisted the federal law prevented the school from disclosing details of an internal investigation to police.

“OSU did not have consent from the respondents or the complainants to reveal their student discipline records, which are educational records, to (campus police),” OSU assistant university counsel Mackenzie Wilfong wrote in a legal memo to the university’s top lawyer after Stillwater police had already launched a criminal investigation into the alleged assaults.

WEST WEBSTER, N.Y.

The gunman who lured two firefighters to their deaths died of a self-inflicted shot to the head and wasn’t hit by return fire from a police officer, New York State Police said Thursday.

But investigators still hadn’t made a positive identification of the body found in William Spengler’s burned house. They have said they believe the remains are those of his 67-year-old sister, Cheryl Spengler, who also lived in the house near Rochester.

Autopsies showed that West Webster volunteer firefighter Michael Chiapperini died of a single gunshot and Tomasz Kaczowka was killed by two, police said.

PHOENIX

The Mexican government has urged a U.S. court to stop Arizona from enforcing a minor section of the state’s 2010 immigration law that prohibits the harboring of illegal immigrants.

Lawyers representing Mexico asked the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in a filing Wednesday to uphold a lower-court ruling that blocked police from enforcing the ban. Mexico argued the ban harms diplomatic relations between the United States, undermines the U.S.’s ability to speak to a foreign country with one voice and encourages the marginalization of Mexicans and people who appear to be from Latin America.